In which I try to do bike-related things and fail; also a short piece about being CRB checked.
The bike was to come from Woolworths, and was duly ordered. Due to the ineptitude of the delivery company, they weren’t able to deliver it until Monday, a full week after it was bought and paid for. I took one of my annual leave days, because they couldn’t tell me when it would be delivered. After being told by Woolworths first thing in the morning that it would be arriving between 9:00 and 1:00, I duly waited for it. I then had a call from the driver of the van to say that it would be mid afternoon. Grr etc. I duly made dinosaur noises, and then settled in for the wait.
2:30 rolled around, and I got my bike. W00t! I unpacked it, at which point, I thought that it looked a little on the small side. Hmm. Maybe that was just because it was in pieces. After assembling it, it was definitely too small. Gah! Like by about 4 inches or so. This was after reading on their website that said bike would be a perfect fit. This is obviously too small to be dealt with. A little bit too small is one thing, but this was just not to be borne. So it’s going back.
Luckily, I hadn’t yet done anything with the old bike I’d inherited from my granddad. It’s a fifty(ish) year-old Raleigh utility bike, suitable for a wide range of activities, with a steel frame. It’s like the one in the picture, but in light racing green with a basket on the front.
It’s creaky, the tyres are perished and the chain is all sagged out. This morning, I took it to a bike shop in town which also does repairs; they said it’d be about £60 or so replace the lot, and I could have it back at the end of the day. I did my Monty Burns impression and left my work number, anicipating that I would pick it up at the end of the day, the old sit-up-and-beg rejuvenated and raring to go.
Unfortunately, I got a call later on to say that the rear sprockets are completely knackered, meaning that the beautiful, original Sturmey-Archer gear hub would have to be replaced. Luckily, they had a second hand one, but it meant that the bike would have to be picked up tomorrow morning. Damn and blast and aaargh!
Still, at least I will have a working bike tomorrow morning again. I’d forgotten how slow it feels to walk anywhere.
In other news, I now have to be CRB checked.
It’s been a pain in the arse week.